Lotus Notes

karlitob

Hi all

Could I get your view on what the benefits are of using Lotus Notes in a modern workplace. What’s going for it?

What are the arguments against?

many thanks.

nothing unless everything is built on it as legacy

and in that case projects should be well underway to review and get whatever is on it into modern platforms

AndrewJRenko

It is obsolete technology. Most commercial users have migrated away or are migrating right at present.

karlitob

Thank you both.

is it cheap? Is it more secure? Than exchange.

do you know of any framework for comparing operating systems?

i dont tbh tho im sure they are out there

really ive seen it in places where key users have built little fiefdoms based on apps/archives on notes and they make nonsense cases that there's risks of data integrity or functionality loss in a migration but its always just to avoid change- my experience is that IT will always want to migrate but the business unit will get spooked and refuse

given opportunity cost of what newer platforms give you and the overhead of maintaining such outmoded systems i doubt the financials make sense except in exceptional circumstances - maybe where theres very stable stuff built thats only used/accessed in a very fixed way.

obv the risk grows over time with that approach too tho

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

My heart's broken reading these replies, tbh 😟

I worked for Lotus Development from 1991, through the IBM bluewash, until 2015ish. They (IBM) bought/raped Lotus primarily for Notes. SmartSuite (Lotus' equivalent of MS Office) be damned, and so it was so.

Googling tonight, it seems IBM sold off Notes/Domino in 2019, so realistically, Lotus as a brand no longer exists 🙁

In any event, I'm still an advocate, I've two decades of experience of Notes/Domino development, and I've worked with the government (Dept of the Oireachtas).

AMA 🙂

Flinty997

Lotus was the primary system in one company I worked in for years. Back around 2000. Was a great platform back then.

I'm not sure I've worked anywhere with a better system for doing what it does. That I've never worked anywhere that works as well as team either.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119254874#Comment_119254874

It makes no sense to consider it as an email platform, honestly. Exchange is the default, or there are open-source options via Linux.

Would you be considering Betamax video tape recorders for recording your favourite TV shows?

to be clear ive definitely seen it deployed well and it certainly had versatility on its side. those that like it, like it a lot.

but id compare it to buying a quirky but loveable car which had questionable options for mechanic expertise locally. for a business you'll almost always want the most popular, widest supported option

Flinty997

Its more like everyone used to have saloons and now everyone has a SUV. But most people just it exactly the same.

We use things like outlook/exchange/SharePoint almost exactly like we used lotus note. In fact I think Notes was less fragmented and did more. Of course its now in the cloud. Most people don't know how to leverage the extra stuff the cloud gives you. Its just added complexity thats often no one asked for.

karlitob

Thanks all.

Maybe I started myself at too high a bar.

I presume Lotus Notes is like Outlook - a front end to interact with email along with other features.

Exchange is not just Outlook? What’s the difference? What’s the Lotus Notes version of Exchange? Is that Domino?

When you guys suggest “I'm not sure I've worked anywhere with a better system for doing what it does. That I've never worked anywhere that works as well as them either.” Can I ask what you mean or some examples?

Thanks for all the engagement.

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

Hmmm, where to start?

Lotus/IBM Domino is an application server. That one of the out-of-the-box applications is an email platform is largely irrelevent.

Lotus/IBM Notes is the thick front-end client for accessing a back-end Domino server. (Two additional clients exist: Designer, for developing Domino applications, and Administrator, for admin'ing the entire server.)

If you're intending to use a thin client, Domino does have its own HTTP server and with the advent of XPages (built on JSF) since Domino 8.5, you get a modern and highly customisable Web email client straight out of the gate. (The pre-8.5 web client, while functional, was utter pants aesthetically.)

All that said, if you opt for Notes/Domino as a email platform only, you're missing out on its strength as an application server, be it online discussions, workflow management, scheduling, reporting, etc, etc.

Perhaps Exchange is as configurable/customisable/feature-rich, but I kinda doubt it 🙃

Flinty997

We used Lotus notes for email, document management system, bug tracking, help desk, Project Management, QA and testing also applications and databases.

AndrewJRenko

It looks like you might be over complicating this. As others have said, the Notes/Domino tools are really application development and application hosting. Email is a byproduct of this.

No-one in Government is using Notes for new developments, and most are trying to migrate old Notes systems to Sharepoint or Powerapps or similar.

If you're looking for a justification for using Notes, you're going down the wrong road.

karlitob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119283908#Comment_119283908

Ha!!! The opposite. I’m playing devils advocate with myself so as to understand the justifications.

Flinty997

I didn't go back to notes. But We have to jump through hoops to do the same thing today using Microsoft products.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284224#Comment_119284224

Again, you might be over complicating things. You don’t need a hugely detailed justification to move off Notes. It is 1990s technology and is no longer supported by mainstream providers. Follow the precedent of lots of other public bodies, such as Dept Justice.

i think notes had a sliding doors moment where it didnt really adapt brilliantly to mobile devices and then cloud- open to correction here.

its not to say that microsoft products are any better- anyone can offer software individually available in a package that probably does what any one microsoft product manages but better and more configurable

but the support and the ecosystem of expertise out there for MS products is always going to appeal to the likes of govt and multinational level firms and at some critical stage somewhere around late 90s IBM just failed to get notes into the conversations.

sharepoint is a clumsy heap of junk for most actual uses but somehow microsoft kept it current and iterating and eventually people just work with it

Flinty997

SharePoint Online still feels like a beta product to me. It's feels very immature. The interface is usual MS poor unclear design. Whatever about low code it still needs a fairly deep skillet to leverage the power platform.

But at least it works online and most devices.

karlitob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119284298#Comment_119284298

Can I ask like what? Thanks.

Flinty997

Simple things like adding groups of people to document shares. In SharePoint there is no really user/group management at the enterprise level unless you use Azure Active Directory and then there's a done of lag as the cloud updates. Then there's all sorts of hierarchical sharing, and link sharing that blows through permissions. External users can't be grouped etc. You need a 3rd part tool to really keep an overview on it all. I think SharePoint lists are cumbersome and to be honest as and admin its an ugly interface. if you want to use power apps the security model is cumbersome. You really need a service account and exchange groups. Its all an overlapping mess.

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

Great points from Andrew and Snoop above. (You could say Exchange is 90s tech as well 🙂)

I'd argue, though, that IBM were still actively developing Domino well into the early 2010s; fúck knows, they needed some return on their $3.5b hostile takeover of Lotus. Certainly, I was spending three weeks out of four somewhere stupid on the continent, consulting to enterprise deployments.

To be honest, in retrospect, IBM were just too disparate in their software offerings. In particular, the UX overlap between OOTB Lotus Domino and IBM Connections. Fair to say, compared to the Websphere stack, we were the poor cousins.

My previous point still stands: Domino as a mail-only server is ludicrous*.

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

^^^

Oddly, Connections also went to HCL (along with Domino and other products) in 2018. I've no idea if IBM still produce a "collaboration" product.

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

(Waiting for Olympus Has Fallen to start on RTE1 and I've one final comment/question.)

Why don't the myriad of government departments have a unified email platform? For something so fundamental - something that imho invariably sucks a disproportionate amount of both user provisioning and management time - it seems mad that a single department can choose an arbitrary platform.

Just curious.

As Andrew said above, the Department of Justice moved away from Domino (courts.ie which used Domino's pants HTTP server) a few years ago. The Department of the Oireachtas was definitely using Notes for email the last time I was in, though oireachtas.ie has the same look and feel as courts.ie today, so who knows?

(Off to enjoy Mike Banning kicking terrorist ass.)

Flinty997

They do have some common applications. But they don't want to share data. Even if they were allowed.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119286438#Comment_119286438

Each Government department is independent in its spending decisions. Each individual secretary general is the accounting officer for all spending in the department and is responsible to the Oireachtas for that spending.

That's why there is no mandated email or indeed other system for government departments. There are OGP framework agreements for Microsoft licencing and licences for other mainstream products. There is also a central approval and oversight process for all substantial IT spending decisions via Circular 2/2016, so if one department decided to spend money on some crazy option, they'd be pushed fairly hard to justify that decision.

Tri Oidhcheannan Eile

Thanks, Flinty and Andrew for the explanations. I guess, after a quarter century of corporate-land, that just seems insane to me.

*resists the urge to make some smart comment about the Office of Government Procurement and fiscal irresponsibility*

i don't even know where to begin with it tbh, its a big question.

too much built on too many systems with too many data risks (usually without much merit) waved as justification to avoid a move. too many fiefdoms!

now shared applications have come in to an extent but its also fair to say that the one size fits most approach usually means that one size leaves out quite a lot of edge cases, and when your work is carried out as a direct result of primary legislation thats enough to cry out of many initiatives

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119254874#Comment_119254874

Don't use it as other posters have said.

It was basically used as a cash cow by IBM when they bought it and no real development went into it.

Took Poodle to happen for them to eventually get TLS1 on to it after customers requesting the same for nearly a decade or more and even then management had to be raked over the coals to provide TLS1. 2.

Last time I checked (about 6 months ago) I can still crack their user internet password hash with a good list and about 20 minutes of processing.

Since they screwed their cloud customers over, and sold it to HCL it has only gotten worse and IBM have migrated to Exchange.

A real pity as Domino was a great product and the logging etc you could activate with a few lines on the console was great compared to Windows

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119290505#Comment_119290505

To many fiefdoms and edge cases. Man isn't that the truth.

Then there's the old adage where that off the shelf new application does 80% of what you want but that last 20% might be a show stopper.

in govt and established big dog multinationals, that 20% is almost guaranteed to be a show stopper.

the PO level of serious decision makers for ICT platform/enterprise projects have en masse a serious aversion to cutting edge or niche tech and i use both terms very loosely in context

im not saying they are wrong either its just the pool those big beasts swim in tbh